I’ve been studying the Bible for many years, and
I’ve come to a conclusion: Jesus is a pretty good role model. For example, I’ve
been watching Him in His ministry, and listening (so to speak) as He instructs
His followers, and I’m thinking, “Hey, I’m a follower. Maybe I’d better pay
attention!”
For instance, at the end of Matthew 9 we have a
description of how Jesus did ministry, and if I want to be like Him, then I
ought to do ministry the same way. And then in the beginning of Matthew 10, He
instructs the Boys (aka “the apostles”) on how to do ministry. I’m thankful
that He’s not a hypocrite: He teaches them to do the same things that He did.
And when you boil it all down, it’s actually not real complicated.
Matthew 9:35: Then Jesus went about all the cities
and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the
kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.
So the essence of Jesus’ ministry was pretty
simple: Go, Preach, Heal.
Matthew 10:6 But go rather to the lost sheep of the
house of Israel .
7 And as you go, preach, saying, 'The kingdom of heaven is at hand.' 8 Heal the
sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons.
And His instructions to the Boys were pretty much
the same: Go, Preach, Heal. He added some details about what to preach (“The
kingdom is at hand”) and how to heal (cleanse lepers, raise the dead, etc…).
Even the Great Commission focuses on the same
things.
Mark 16:15 And He said to them, "Go into all
the world and preach the gospel to every creature. 16 He who believes and is
baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned. 17 And
these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out
demons; they will speak with new tongues; 18 they will take up serpents; and if
they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands
on the sick, and they will recover."
All of my responsibilities as a Christian fall into
two camps: who I am and what I do. And in the “what I do” category, I have only
three things: go, preach, heal.
I look at that list, and it scares me. I think:
“Go. I can do that. Preach. I can do that.” And then I come to the last one:
“Heal. I can’t do that.”
That’s wrong on a couple of levels. First it
betrays a fundamental heresy in my understanding of the gospel: the gospel
requires the supernatural. The presentation of the gospel that Jesus understood
involves signs and wonders. It involves people throwing down their crutches,
and dead guys climbing out of their coffins and surgeons looking at x-rays and
scratching their heads and demons being chased out of people. That’s part of
the gospel!
I’m thinking that a five minute presentation of
“the Four Laws” is insufficient. That’s what brought most of my generation to
Christ (maybe that’s our problem!).Someone who knows about these things pointed
out to me that pretty much every time in the gospels that we see Jesus teaching
or preaching, we probably see him healing the sick as well: a powerless gospel
is not the gospel!
But that leads me to my second problem: I don’t do
so good at healing people. I can’t really do that. And for long seasons of my
life, I gave up trying. This is where my second major error happens. Sure, I
can’t heal people without divine assistance. But what on earth makes me think I
can do the rest of it on my own?
The whole gospel is – at its core – supernatural.
It involves at the very least a transformation from death to life, and if you
believe the Bible, then there’s a party in heaven when that happens, because something
supernatural happened! So what makes me think I can preach without His divine
impartation on me? What makes me think I can even go as a representative of
Heaven except that He commissions me, He sends me, He goes with me? This is not
a place where a “Please bless my words” prayer will work. I need power as
desperately in my going and in my preaching as I do in my healing the sick and
raising the dead.
And just because I can’t do it is no excuse. I
still need to heal the sick and raise the dead.
So ultimately, my problem is that I don’t believe
the Bible: I haven’t recognized the necessity of the supernatural, so I’ve left
the healing part out, and then I’ve tried to do the rest of it pretty much on
my own.
I think I have a lot to learn!
Go! Preach! Heal!
1 comment:
People have asked about teaching this in their local community. Please feel free to teach it.
Here's the powerpoint file I used when I taught it:
http://bit.ly/5D7jaJ
And here's an audio file for the teaching itself:
http://bit.ly/f6aMqG
Enjoy!
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